Honolulu Civil Beat: “Deep in the Washington state wilderness, a highly paid political consultant is raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s presidential campaign. It’s the kind of money usually spent on national name-brand political operatives with bustling offices and large staffs based in Washington, D.C., or New York.”

“But few people in the business have ever heard of Kris Robinson, the owner of Northwest Digital, a web design and internet marketing firm working for Gabbard’s campaign. His company address is a PO box here in Stehekin, a remote village in the Northern Cascades mountains that’s famous for its isolation.”

“Good politicians are smooth. Gabbard is beyond smooth. She’s unflappable to the point of being confounding, even to the many people I spoke with who have worked with her for years in Washington, D.C., and at home in Hawaii. She may be the most elusive candidate running for president, with a campaign that has followed none of the rules of conventional or contemporary politics, and a small but committed group of supporters.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) presidential campaign is calling on the DNC to revise its list of debate qualifying polls in an effort to help the congresswoman qualify for the third Democratic debate, ABC News reports.

“The Gabbard team is citing what they describe as several irregularities in the selection and timing of the DNC sponsored polls. The campaign points out Gabbard has exceeded 2% support in 26 polls, but only two of them are on the DNC’s ‘certified’ list.”

Jewish Insider: “A neo-Nazi website took credit for Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) qualification for the first two Democratic primary debates. The Daily Stormer, a notorious white supremacist and antisemitic website, proclaimed in April ‘we did it” — after the Hawaii congresswoman reached the 65,000 donor threshold needed to participate in the first two debates.”

“The Gabbard campaign did not respond to repeated requests for comment.”

“Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) White House campaign announced Friday it had reached the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) donor threshold to appear at the primary debate in September,” The Hill reports.

“Gabbard’s camp said it had garnered 130,000 unique donors, with more than 400 donors in at least 20 states. To qualify for September’s debate, candidates must hit 130,000 donors and get 2 percent support in at least four different polls.”

Said Gabbard: “I think one of the things I’m most concerned with is, Kamala Harris is not qualified to serve as commander in chief, and I can say this from a personal perspective as a soldier. She’s got no background or experience in foreign policy, and she lacks the temperament that is necessary for a commander-in-chief.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-HI) presidential campaign had just one full-time employee in the first three months of the year, the Daily Beast reports.

“A review of Federal Election Commission records show Gabbard’s campaign made a single payment of less than $2,600 to field staffer Amaury Dujardin. Every other member of Gabbard’s campaign staff, including her campaign manager, was paid as a consultant, not a full-time employee. By contrast, the campaign spent $30,850 on billboard advertisements over the same period.”

“The Russian propaganda machine that tried to influence the 2016 U.S. election is now promoting the presidential aspirations of a controversial Hawaii Democrat who earlier this month declared her intention to run for president in 2020,” NBC News reports.

“An NBC News analysis of the main English-language news sites employed by Russia in its 2016 election meddling shows Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who is set to make her formal announcement Saturday, has become a favorite of the sites Moscow used when it interfered in 2016.”

“Two-and-a-half weeks after she told CNN she had decided to run for the White House—an announcement that even her own staff didn’t know was coming, after weeks of debating the timing of the rollout—the 37-year-old congresswoman has struggled to contain the chaos.”

“Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in the early 2000s touted working for her father’s anti-gay organization, which mobilized to pass a measure against same-sex marriage in Hawaii and promoted controversial conversion therapy,” CNN reports.

“Her past views and activism in opposition to LGBT rights in the late 90s and early 2000s, which put her out of step with most of the Democratic Party at the time, have come under more intense scrutiny since her announcement.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) announced on CNN that she will seek the 2020 Democratic nomination for president.

Said Gabbard: “I have decided to run and will be making a formal announcement within the next week.”

She added: “There is one main issue that is central to the rest, and that is the issue of war and peace. I look forward to being able to get into this and to talk about it in depth when we make our announcement.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) may make an announcement about a presidential bid as soon as this week, BuzzFeed News reports.

“Even in a barely formed presidential field, Gabbard would enter the race as an underdog. She did not rate a mention in a Des Moines Register/CNN poll of the Democratic presidential field last week. House members have an inherently difficult time running for national office, as they are often little known outside their district. The last one to successfully do it was James Garfield — in 1880.”

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) is considering running for president in 2020, Politico reports.

“Rania Batrice, an advisor to the progressive congresswoman who served as deputy campaign manager on Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, has been putting out feelers for digital and speech-writing staff for Gabbard. One person approached about the positions say that 2020 wasn’t mentioned explicitly, but it was heavily implied.”

About Political Wire

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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